"So, what do you think?"

I could only nod in response as I regarded my newly made suit of armour. It was coloured a dark grey, bordering on black, with white-coloured engravings adorning the metal. The suit was a full set of plate armour.

"It's beautiful."

"Damn right, it is!" the smith, Bertram, replied.

"This is one of my best works so far. Because the set didn't need to align with a certain affinity, I was able to focus on using materials that make it as sturdy as possible. This suit will survive most battles you'll have in tier 2 without a scratch, I can promise you that much!"

Cerion peered in from outside the room, not willing to be left out.

"So why choose the colour black? It's pretty unusual for equipment to be coloured black, no?"

Bertram scratched the back of his head.

"Well... I don't get to use black much. Aligned equipment usually uses coulours that look like the element they are aligned to. For obvious reasons, the dark element never gets used. As a result, you're very unlikely to ever see any black equipment. I thought it looked good, though. Do you want me to change the colour?" he asked as he turned to me.

"No, it's fine. I like the colour, actually. So... how do I put it on?"

"Aha! Well, let me tell you a thing or two about this suit of armour. I used a skill that would make it far easier to equip. Just put your hand on the suit and bond with it."

Frowning, I did so. I couldn't really tell what he was getting at, but I would have to bond with the suit anyway.

Ding! You've come into contact with an ownerless suit of armour. Accept bond? Bond accepted. Calibrating....Done.

[Unaligned suit of armour]

Tier 2 armour.

Property: [Quick equip]

This suit was made by a talented blacksmith for a young warrior. Because of the materials used, it is very sturdy as compared to other tier 2 equipment. The blacksmith used his limited understanding of properties to apply [Quick equip].

"[Quick equip]? Properties? What is the system talking about?"

Bertram was quick to explain.

"Higher tiered blacksmiths gain the ability to apply properties to equipment. Unlike enchantments, which apply a certain skill to an item, properties are inherent abilities that make the item more convenient to use or change one of its previous 'properties'. You can make it so that a sword never loses its sharpness, for example, but you can't make it shoot fireballs. You would need an enchanter to do so. Normally only tier 4 smiths can change weapon properties, but yours truly is rather talented. Just say 'equip suit' in your mind while touching it."

I did as he asked, and was very impressed by the sudden heavy feeling that enveloped me. My movement became strained and my sight became obstructed in some corners by the helmet that had appeared on my head.

"What do you think? Pretty impressive, huh?"

Cerion was very impressed as well.

"Is that spatial magic? It just teleported onto his body!"

Bertram didn't seem to know how to respond.

"Not really... unlike enchantments, blacksmiths don't really need to understand properties to apply them. It kind of feels like we need to impress the system enough with our skill so that it blesses our newly made item. From there, the system does the rest. It doesn't make sense, I know, but who can really say why the system works the way it does?"

I turned to Bertram and gave him the remaining 13 gold I owed him.

"Well, I, for one, am very impressed with your work. Here's the rest of your fee."

"Pleasure doing business with you, pal. Come again if you need something made. It's been fun to make something unaligned, for once. Really opens your eyes, when mana isn't involved in the crafting of something."

We bid Bertram the smith goodbye and went on our way. With my new suit picked up and Cerion's interest in the new restaurant finally satisfied, it was time for us to go out questing again. With the tournament two and a half months away, we had no time to waste if we wanted to hit level 50. Without hitting level 50, we wouldn't be able to compete with the top tier 2 talent of the kingdom, who Cerion was convinced could fight above their tier like us.

After the tournament would be the perfect time to tier up again.

I pierced the goblins skull with my sword, ending its life with a guttural scream.

Ding! Combat finished. Congratulations on reaching [Overloading Death Knight] level 27!

Reach level 50 to advance to tier 3.

Stat points allocated. 5 free stat points per level up awarded.

I found Cerion sitting on a log nearby.

"I think I got the last of them."

His monster-hide armour was covered in blood, just like my armour was. Despite this, he answered with a smile.

"Thank Helios if you did. I'm tired of chasing these monsters over and over again. We've been on this quest for nearly a week."

"It's a shame we didn't find any tier 3. Taking this quest was a gamble. Oh well, we can't always get lucky. I still got a level out of it, though."

I said with a grin. I knew it would make him jealous. Cerion had already reached level 30, and any advancement in level took hundreds of tier 2 monsters. We had spent nearly six days wiping out a nomadic goblin horde, hoping that it was being led by a tier 3 that we could slaughter for some experience, but our gamble hadn't paid off. That was the risk you took when choosing quests, some gave a lot of unexpected windfalls, while others just felt like a waste of time. This goblin horde hadn't even attacked any settlements yet, so it's not like we had any reason to kill them beyond the experience.

"You did?! You lucky bastard! Share some of that experience with me!"

He ran at me, intending to playfully choke me, but I ducked under his arms.

"I don't think so. Get your own experience."

"I thought we were friends!"

"It's just business." I replied with a grin.

We stopped our banter to inspect our surroundings one final time before returning to Reito.

We hadn't spent much time there for the past month. After the tsuchigumo extermination, we had fervently started to take up quests, completing them like mad men. Killing rats, searching for rare mushrooms in monster-infested forests, escorting merchants and so on. Unfortunately, most hadn't rewarded us with much experience or money. Turns out extermination quests were rather rare, and so were tier 3 monsters. The only other extermination request we had been eligible to take was the tier 2 goblin horde extermination, which had been a dud.

There were areas with more high-tier monsters, of course, but the tier 4s and 5s that wandered those areas just made approaching them too dangerous, limiting us to the weaker, civilian areas of the Roa kingdom.

It didn't help that Doran hadn't let us take any tier 3 quests after the tsuchigumo fiasco. He felt guilty and blamed himself for us landing in a life-threatening situation. It was ridiculous, of course, but no one had any luck convincing him to let it go. Because of that, we were stuck doing tier 2 quests, getting maybe one or two levels per, if we were lucky.

With one month left and another 23 levels to go, things were starting to look grim. A month had only gotten me 9 levels, meaning that I would only get another 13-15 before the tournament. That was enough to compete with the other tier 2s, but was it enough to win? I wasn't sure.

At least there was a silver lining. Both of our skill progression had increased a lot over the past month.

Name: Arthur Titles [Dark prodigy] Class: [Overloading Death Knight] LVL 27 Strength 212 Constitution 208 Dexterity 208 Intelligence 75 Wisdom 173 Affinity 413 Free stat points 0

Skills:

Passive: [Dark radiance core](17%), [Dark sight](34%), [Berserker Swordsmanship](35%),

[Growing lifespan](N/A), [Mental palace](N/A), [Fast processing](N/A), [Dark Form](11%), [Overload Aura](17%)

Active: [Shadow apparation](98%), [Flexible senses](N/A), [Curse mark(guide)](28%), [Overloaded orb](37%), [Overloaded sword](18%), [Dark Blade Maelstrom](9%)

My stat-growth had been good, with me finally reaching 200 in each physical stat. The next milestone only appeared at 300, so those hadn't appeared yet, but I had gained another skill in the meantime.

I had gained the first milestone for intelligence, and even gone as far as to increase it straight to 75. That way I wouldn't need to increase it again until I hit the next tier. Unless, of course, I wanted the next milestone before I reached tier 3. That was a risk, however. Increasing my intelligence too much might bring my tier 3 class closer to a caster. It was a slippery slope. I would have to deliberate my choices when I got there.

When I had reached the milestone, the system had awarded me with the bog-standard intelligence milestone skill.

Ding! 50 intelligence reached! Awarded the [Fast processing] skill.

[Fast processing](N/A)

Tier 2 skill.

Your brain's processing speed increases marginally. Does not affect learning ability beyond the increase in processed information.

Increase intelligence to the next milestone to increase skill tier.

The final skill of note was [Shadow apparation]. It was one of my oldest skills, yet it hadn't tiered up even once yet. Unlike [Dark augment], there were no cheesy ways to improve my skill progression, which meant I had had to practice it the hard way. Even with my near-infinite supply of mana, progress had been slow. The last few percent had taken all of my concentration to get, and I was still two percent off from getting it to tier 4. Despite this, I was confident in reaching that point within the week. To summarise, as far as my skills and stats went, things were looking good.

Still, without the necessary levels, we would have at least a 10% disadvantage when it came to raw stats, good classes or no. We weren't the only ones with good classes, after all. I wasn't confident in winning if we kept going at the current rate.

Apparently, neither was Cerion. He was starting to seem anxious about levelling up as fast as possible. Our current levelling speed was already multiple times what other talented people our age would have, but we both knew it wouldn't be enough.

Unlike me though, Cerion was really stressing out about this tournament. I wanted to give a good showing and win, sure. The thought of revealing my circumstances to the world in one big bang was scary to me, yet I had convinced myself it was necessary. I wanted to give a good showing.

Cerion, on the other hand, was acting like his life depended on this tournament.

"Do you mind if I ask why you're so hung up about the royal tournament? I mean, it's exciting, sure, and I'm competitive enough to want to win, too, but you look more scared than excited when you talk about reaching level 50."

Cerion became red with anger and was about to say something, but he caught himself before he said it. He turned away and calmed himself.

"I'm sorry for acting like this. As the tournament approaches the realness of it all is getting to me. You probably know by now that I never really interacted with other people and nobles as I grew up. I mean, I know how to do so, I just never had the chance to. Now that I'm about to compete with all these other people, I don't want to disappoint my father. Even more so, I want to step out of his shadow, even if it's just a little bit. The pressure of the public's expectations has been getting to me. I've never had to deal with it before, so I thought I would be fine, but now that we're here... I don't know how to handle it."

"Well, the only thing I expect of you is to bite the dust when we come across one another in the arena, haha... shit." I added the last part in a whisper.

I wanted to comfort him, I really did, but him opening up like that made me slightly uncomfortable. That, combined with a lack of social skills on my end, translated into a half-hearted joke that didn't really land.

Cerion didn't seem to be offended though, thankfully.

"Thanks, Arthur. Don't go easy on me if we end up facing one another, alright?"

"Of course not. That goes for you too, Cerion."

We gave each other a smile, before Cerion turned serious again, a determined glint in his eyes.

"When we get back to Reito, we have to convince the guild master to let us take another tier 3 quest. We simply don't have any other choice if we want to reach level 50 by the time the tournament starts."

Infected by his determination, what could I do but agree? I gave him an enthusiastic nod.

"Let's."